Treesearch

Introduction: Timber harvests influence coarse woody debris (CWD) dynamics both initially and long-term—contributing a significant amount of CWD as slash immediately after harvest, but also removing some or all of the mature trees necessary to produce CWD over time. Whereas shelterwood and other similar timber harvest systems retain varying amounts of the overstory, preserving CWD production after harvest, commercial clearcutting essentially eliminates sources of fresh CWD until regenerating trees are large enough to contribute CWD through fallen limbs or trunks, often decades after...

Manipulation of host phenotypes by parasites is hypothesized to be an adaptive strategy enhancing parasite transmission across hosts and generations. Characterizing the molecular mechanisms of manipulation is important to advance our understanding of host–parasite coevolution. The trematode (Levinseniella byrdi) is known to alter the colour and behaviour of its amphipod host (Orchestia grillus) presumably increasing predation of amphipods which enhances trematode transmission through its life cycle. We sampled 24 infected and 24 uninfected amphipods from a salt marsh in Massachusetts to...

Livestock removal is increasingly used as a management option to mitigate the negative impacts of grazing-related disturbances on rangelands. Removal generally increases plant cover, but it is unclear when, where, and by how much plant and soil cover changes can be expected. On the Colorado Plateau, complex geology, topography, soils, and climate all interact to mediate the relationship between land cover, climate, and disturbance. In this study we used new developments in land cover mapping and analysis to assess landscape plant and bare soil cover up to 30 years after livestock removal...

What does contemporary Indigenous stewardship look like in urban spaces? We answer this question by exploring Urban ʻĀina, a practice-based Native Hawaiian paradigm that shapes how we engage urban landscapes as Indigenous spaces, revitalizes the expression of Indigenous knowledge, and relies on Indigenous sensibilities to address and respond to modern issues such as food security, ecological degradation, and the climate change crisis. We find that places shaped by Urban ʻĀina practices serve as cultural kīpuka—biocultural refugia where kincentric, reciprocal relationships are honored...

Agroforestry has a high potential to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation as a nature-based climate solution and is increasingly included as a climate strategy in international agreements and national plans. Yet, how to equitably increase and sustain agroforestry on the scale needed to meet these targets remains unclear. Examining broad trends in the existing 4 decades of agroforestry literature can highlight gaps and opportunities for future research that enables agroforestry transitions. Using text analytics and a full-text, corpus-based approach, we analyzed changes in...

Research has documented how recent wildfires are characteristic of a new fire regime marked by larger, more severe, and damaging wildfires. However, there is less information on how these fire regimes are affecting communities with different sociodemographic characteristics across socio-ecologically diverse regions. Therefore, we spatiotemporally and statistically analyzed the sociodemographic characteristics of communities affected by wildfire in California, USA during 2010–2020. Second, we analyzed if specific sociodemographic groups and disadvantaged communities (DACs) were increasingly...

Soil attributes, climate, and time since reclamation have important implications for oil and gas reclamation success on drylands. It is uncertain if reclaimed well pads, on highly degraded drylands, can successfully regain ecological function or meet indicator benchmarks for reclamation. Here, our goals were to assess patterns in reclamation outcomes relative to (1) soil attributes, climate, and time since reclamation; and (2) plant and soil reference benchmarks. We collected a suite of plant, soil, and landscape characteristics from 134 reclaimed well pads on the Colorado Plateau that...

Bamboo composite is an attractive candidate for structural materials in applications such as construction, the automotive industry, and logistics. However, its development has been hindered due to the use of harmful petroleum-derived synthetic adhesives or low-bonding biobased adhesives. Herein, we report a novel bioadhesion strategy based on in situ lignin bonding that can process natural bamboo into a scalable and high-performance composite. In this process, lignin bonds the cellulose fibrils into a strong network via a superstrong adhesive interface formed by hydrogen bonding and...

Questions: Fire regime alterations are pushing open ecosystems worldwide past tipping points where alternative steady states characterized by woody dominance prevail. This reduces the frequency and intensity of surface fires, further limiting their effectiveness for controlling cover of woody plants. In addition, grazing pressure (exotic or native grazers) can reinforce woody encroachment by potentially reducing fine-fuel loads. We investigated the effects of different fire energies on the herbaceous plant community, together with mammalian wildlife herbivory (exotic and native combined)...

Rosewood and palisander (Dalbergia L.f., Fabaceae) are sources of highly valuable tropical timber and include species threatened by habitat degradation and selective logging for national and international trade. Law enforcement depends on reliable and cost-effective species-level identification of timber along the supply chain. The potential of wood anatomy to distinguish between species has not yet been systematically investigated for Dalbergia species from Madagascar. We assessed 36 qualitative and eight quantitative wood anatomical features in 16 Malagasy Dalbergia species that form...